


Arsonist's Lullaby

by Lyovochka (Lassasymphonie)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Everyone Has Issues, Friendship, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Instability, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Platonic Relationships, Psychic Bond, Romance, Scars, Starvation, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 10:45:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6076380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassasymphonie/pseuds/Lyovochka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every night in his dreams, Kylo watches her die. It comes without a warning, as fast as a lightining — a flash of blood, red, deep red, and nothing more.<br/>Every night in his dreams, Kylo watches a boy fight for his life. It comes with dampening, suffocating darkness, auburn hair shining slick with sweat — and a heart, cracking.<br/>Every night in his dreams, Kylo watches things he shouldn't watch. There's this boy who falls, who's always falling, and there's no one there to catch him — and another one who screams as loud as he can, but who can't be heard by anyone but him. A girl as cold as the winds of winter.<br/>There are people outside this planet, this whole galaxy, people who are connected to him somehow — people just beyond his reach, close enough he can almost touch them with his fingertips, but never more.<br/>So here's what Kylo knows: the world is ending. And here's what he doesn't know: to a lot of them, it already did.</p>
<p>(<em>Phasma</em>, he gasps when he wakes. <em>Phasma</em>. And she's there, by his side, there, close, closer, but never enough. <em>I am going insane</em>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arsonist's Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xHoodie (firewasntmadetobeheldinhumanskin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewasntmadetobeheldinhumanskin/gifts).



> Title comes from the song of the same name by Hozier.
> 
> I have no idea where this came from, but it's probably my sister's fault. Probably. I should know it was bound to happen sooner or later — mathemathics say that watching/reading new things = new ships = plotbunnies everywhere and I have no self-control whatsoever, so of course I’m writing something new when I should be working on another things ~~let’s say my jason/tim fake dating au fic~~. I don’t even have it in me to regret anything anymore.
> 
> Anyway.  
> Characterization is a crazy thing, and I have no idea how to do it (but I'm not really worried about it). That are also some pretty heavy things happening all around the story, so if you didn't read the tags, I advise you to do it. All the typos are my own.
> 
> More than that, I hope you enjoy...?  
>  ~~(And sis', I hope you know this is all your fault.)~~

They don't start off as nightmares. It's not — it's not how it worked. At first. There was an impression, and echo of something that always rubbed at the back of his mind, like feather-like fingertips ghosting over his consciousness — but Kylo could never grab it, could never catch it.

When he finally did, when he finally understood what it meant, he wished he'd never tried.

  


  


  


The first time he's seven. There are mostly flashes, scattered memories thrown around him, and his curious eyes can only take so much. A smiling face with a gap between the teeth. Dirty-blonde hair. Sunburnt hands. A tree full with green leaves that stands as high as the sky. A dark skinned woman with the most tenderful eyes he's ever seen. Wheatfields. Sand dunes.

Kylo craves for the flashes. Drowns in them, the warmness, the safe feeling he gets, a soft tug at his chest feeling so much like love, raw and truthful. It's as if his mind is trying to distract him from the things he wishes he could have when he's awake — things as simple as having his father back home instead of travelling around because of reasons he can't, couldn't, possibly understand, or like when he wants his mother to hug him but is too afraid to ask, or like when Uncle Luke ruffles his hair and smiles at him, and Kylo's insides _churn_.

He doesn't tell anyone about the dreams. They're his, and only his, to have. Kylo is afraid talking about the things he sees will make them go away.

(So he doesn't.)

  


  


On the night of his eighth birthday the dream changes. The woman with the beautiful eyes doesn't show up again — her dark, curly hair, her warm hands around his shoulders.

The hands — sunburnt hands that always used to caress his hair — turn heavy. They weigh down his body like rocks. The wheatfields dull away into ashes and thunder sounds.

But the smiling face, no longer with the gap between the teeth, stands. Kylo clings to it — the freckles and the brown hair, the chubby cheeks, the happiness. He doesn't crave the smile like he did all the memories, but he clings to it like a child would a favoured toy, like his father used to hold his mother when he was younger and she looked like she would cry — she never did, but she never pushed away; instead she pressed herself against his father's chest and clung to him just as strong.

(He holds it like his father would his mother and later he'll realize he should probably have let it go.)

  


  


He's ten when he finally tells mom about the things he sees when he sleeps. The dreams — they've been turning scary over the last months. Suffocating darkness and achings all around his body he can't shrug off when he wakes. Monsters that lurk in shadows, things he can't fight against, hunger he's never felt before. More than once he's awoken in cold sweat, wishing that the voice would go away, that the visions would go away, that everything would go away and so he would sleep a dreamless sleep and wake up, and then forget that he'd ever seen those things.

Mother... She doesn't hear him. She does, in a way, but not in the way that counts for him — she hears the pledges of a little boy who's scared of the dark and whose childish nightmares will soon go away, not the despair that's settled somewhere inside Kylo's guts, the fear that makes him want to scream until his lungs can no longer stand, that makes him want to hide somewhere nothing and no one can ever reach him again.

She stays with him that night. Kylo wants to tell her to go away, to turn her back on him and go away — but a part of him wants to believe that his mom can protect him against this, that she'll make the nightmares go away; because she's his mother and she can do anything, even fight and win against his monsters.

(He'll learn that she cannot.)

  


  


Kylo is eleven when his father visits them again after almost three years. But he doesn't tell father about his nightmares, and he doesn't tell Uncle Chewie, and he doesn't ask about Uncle Luke.

(If his mother can't fight his monsters, Kylo knows, then no one else can — because no one's ever been as strong as she is.)

  


  


Kylo is twelve when the girl dies. There's blood, so much blood, and pain blossoming inside his — her — ribcage. His — her — lungs burn, the effort of trying and getting oxygen pumped to his body so much more than they can take.

She — _he_ — doesn't want to die. Kylo knows it. He feels the despair that washes over her — _him_ —, closes around her — _his_ — throat and presses down. She — _he_ — wanted to do so much more, see so much more, try so much more. The dream that will never be accomplished — the island, the sea, the big trees with green leaves turning orange, turning yellow, falling off and covering the ground, so much water, rocks, the sound of the ocean, someone to caress her — _his_ — hair once again, tender eyes, the warm hands closing around her — _his_ — bony shoulders, the smile with the gaping between the teeth, freckles and chubby cheeks, Uncle Luke ruffling his hair and father—

Kylo wakes up screaming.

(She dies again the next night. And the next. And the next. And then a week later. And then again. And then once more. And every single one of them he screams with her. There's a hit that strikes across his — _her_ — cheek. And then pain. And then she — _he_ — dies. And then he wakes up. And then he goes to sleep. And then she dies again.)

  


  


Kylo is thirteen when he fights for his life.

No — not him. That's not quite right. It's the boy — pale, auburn hair, freckles. The boy's the one who's fighting for his life. Kylo is safe. Kylo is safe.

(It's hard to tell himself that when he starts hyperventilating, when they take away his eyes away locking him up in a cell where there's no light, there's no candle, there's no window, and then tell him, _you gotta earn it_. It's hard when every step makes him spin around, when every punch tears his knuckles open, when every hit splits his lips, when every kick burns his legs to the point where walking, too, is edging on the impossible, just on this side of too painful to bear. And Kylo hears it, how every night he — no, not _he_ , the boy — opens up his heart and cries, and sobs, and then every morning he wakes up to put himself together again, piece by piece, just to realize there's a new crack in there, and another one, and then one more, until the point his heart is merely an empty shell cracked all around and falling apart.)

  


  


Kylo is fourteen when he falls from a tree that stands as high as the sky.

Or — it's not really him, is it? Kylo never climbs on trees, because he's never learned how to. But that doesn't explain anything, because he falls anyway.

(It's another boy but it's him. It's him the one who gets the ground swipped away from his feeth, who wails and fights but has to watch as his village burns to the ground and his father — _but that's not his father, because his father's safe, his father's back at the Falcon, his father's away with Uncle Chewie, his father's okay_ — screams, screams, and then his mother — _but that's not his mother, those aren't her eyes, those aren't her lips, that ain't her hair, that ain't her voice_ — grabs his hand and runs away — but she falls ill, so ill, burning up, and then she dies and he's alone, and he's never been alone — _she's always been alone_ — before, and it's cold so he hides up the trees so the strangers won't find him; but he falls one night while trying and failing to catch a squirrel — and he's so hungry but the snow is so cold, and his arm hurts so much — and then a man walks up to him and reaches out to his hand to say, _fight with me and you'll never have to starve again_ ; and even though he knows things only ever come with a price, he can't, can't, can't do this anymore — and when they open him up and say, _you're our little bird now_ , he can do nothing but to stare back and wish one day he'll have wings strong enough to fly away — he will, he will, and then he'll snatch away their eyes just like they did him.)

  


  


Kylo is fifteen and he doesn't have a name.

But — he does. Kylo. Kylo's his name, right? He remembers that. He must always remember that.

(Should always remember that. But he can't say her name anymore, nor sing the songs she used to sing, lullabies, sweet voice echoing back home. Mom was so beautiful when she sang — and she was her mother, wasn't she? Because she looked at him with so much love in her eyes, even though he can't be loved, even though no one'll ever love him — and that's not what they tell him, they never tell him anything, but he knows. He has no name, he has no past and he has no future, but he used to have a mother who coddled him and covered him up when it was cold — a mother who didn't let him out there to freeze like they do, who didn't tell him false promises, but that's okay, that's okay, his knuckles are still bleeding, and his cheek hurts from the hit, but he's gonna snatch his eyes away one day — he's gonna fly away, so far away, and he'll have a name, and he'll have a name, and then he'll remember the name of the woman who told him, _you're my precious little boy_ , and then Uncle Luke will look down at him and smile and ruffle his hair like he did when he was a baby, chubby cheeks and freckles; and then he'll scream until the pressure goes away even though the pressure goes away — and he'll _know_ , they'll know, he'll never starve again and _he'll know_.)

  


  


Kylo is sixteen and a half when he runs away from home.

Except that he never did that — he never did that, did he?

(He did. No, not he — _she_ did. Tall, tall, taller than most of men can even dream of being. She — _he?_ — is strong, fierce, ruthless even in the face of death. She — _he_ — never smiles. Never laughs. Never feels anything that not the wind against her — _his_ — face, cold and unmerciful, and when she — _he_ — sleeps, she — _he_ — swears she — _he_ — will avenge those people. The boy. The chubby cheeks. Those who snatched away his — _her_ — eyes and who locked him — _her_ — up so she — _he_ — couldn't fly. She — _he_ — will kill them. And when she — _he_ — is done, they will wish they had never took her — _him_ — her — _his_ — mother and his — _her_ — name. They will wish they had never even _tried to_.)

  


  


Kylo is eighteen, and he feels her. Dying, again. The ragged breathes, close enough to make a shiver run down his body, and the sound of her — his, it's _not_ his, _it's not his_! — heart beating wildly against her chest, trying and failing at its only task.

He — _she_ — doesn't have much more time. So Kylo reaches out to her — _she reaches out to him_ —, and hopes that it can be at least comforting — the phantom feeling of fingertips against the bare shoulders, bloodied knuckles, cold skin, warm skin, how her eyes — or are they _his_? — shine against the darkness of the cage he's — _she's_ — been stuck against her — _his_ — will.

She'll fly again. One day. When his rage is strong enough. When her wings are powerful enough. The day he remembers his name is the day they'll regret everything they've ever done against those innocent people — the smiling face with a gap between the teeth haunts her when she closes her eyes.

(Kylo gathers up his things and turns his back on the house he hasn't called home in years. She'll find him — _no_ ; he'll find her. This has to end. _Has to end_.)

(He doesn't look back.)

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea when I'll be updating again. Probably when inspiration strikes.


End file.
